Success Stories

It is an honor and a privilege to bring you the worldwide premiere of the 4th Annual Stage 32 Short Film Program! Below you will find six amazing short films to watch that were carefully curated by Stage 32's panel of leading industry executives. Our esteemed panel of judges is made up of top producers, managers, development executives, and Oscar-winning filmmakers.    These films are only available for viewing for 48 hours.   Our six winning filmmakers hail from all over the world, and...

Happy Post-Oscar Monday Stage 32 Crew! There were a lot of great moments during the ceremony and some very deserving winners. If you participated in our annual Oscar picks contest, I hope you did well. I wanted to kick off this week with a great story I have been tracking for a while. It reminds us that every professional relationship starts with a pitch. For those who doubt the power of the pitch, take note of this story. It might just change your mind. It comes from Stage 32 member Emily...

As we get ready to take in the Academy Awards this Sunday, I am tempted to think about some of my own memorable Oscar Moments and the lessons that those moments have taught me over the years. And, not only are they some of my fondest memories to date, but they read like a list of what to do and what not to do.   Sam, Oscar, and Ernie …   As you can see above, I got to hoist Ernie Borgnine’s Best Actor Oscar from 1956 that he won for portraying the title character in Marty. That was nea...

We are all familiar with the vanity that is deeply threaded in the tapestry of the entertainment industry. This vanity often makes us feel we need to look a certain way or pretend to be 26 years old forever to achieve success in the industry. However, especially when it comes to screenwriting, we have often found that being older is not only irrelevant, it may actually be an advantage.  In this week's episode our FREE webinar "Ask Me Anything", Stage 32 Founder and CEO Richard "RB" Botto and S...

Good morning Stage 32 family! Happy Monday! I hope you are all ready to kick off another exciting and action-packed week in creative greatness! To help get us rolling and inspired, I want to share an update from a dear friend in the Stage 32 community. Late last year, I shared the story of Greg Mania, the winner of our 4th Annual Comedy Writing Contest, who wowed the judges with his hilarious semi-autobiographical pilot, “Mania”. Greg is a very talented writer who has written an independently...

Today in the video below, you're going to see Stage 32 networking at it's finest which resulted in something very cool for our fearless leader, Richard Botto and fellow award-winning filmmaker and Stage 32er Marty Lang.   Back in 2014, RB and Marty met at the Austin Film Festival after being connected through our Stage 32 platform. A friendship grew as Marty went on to be a production manager at Chapman University and RB went on to start writing his book Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers: Indie Fil...

When you are a creative entertainment professional, you never know when inspiration might spark your next film. If you have ever had the pleasure of attending a film festival, you are undoubtedly familiar with the live-wire electricity that flows through festival screenings. The energy and inspiration are so tangible, you feel like you can literally walk right out of the theatre and start filming your next movie! Well, in the case of our fearless leader, Stage 32's CEO Richard "RB" Botto and f...

Several years ago I decided that I wanted to get a degree in film and television from the highly competitive film school at New York University. There was one major obstacle though... I was a high school drop out. What are the odds of my being accepted into this school and program? Not very good, but I decided (call it naivety, blind faith, insanity or whatnot) it was not only possible, but it was going to be my reality. I put one foot in front of the other, busted my butt as if it were life or...

Welcome to 2020, Stage 32 Family! It’s the big first Monday of the year, and we’re coming out guns blazing with a big Stage 32 success story. If you’re looking for some inspiration for getting your work out there in the new year, listen to this story from Stage 32 member Laurie Ashbourne who has been a Stage 32 member for over 8 years. Now Laurie has not one, but two projects set up through Stage 32! One of which is going into production in March with a massive genre producer on board. I will...

Welcome to the last Monday of this decade! I hope everyone had a safe, happy and healthy holiday week! And obviously, we’re just around the corner from the big one! I am really excited for all that 2020 holds and I am sure you are right there too. But man, what a year it has been! Many members of the Stage 32 community have been blessed with success over the course of the year. In fact, there were so many that I had to break this blog into two parts. If you missed Part One of the blog, you can f...